174 THE WHALEMAN'S ADVENTURES. 



enterprise, and soon resumed her former course. 

 In about an hour or so the Lupin came up to 

 inquire the news, but soon made sail after the 

 Orion ; and before night both were out of sight 

 to leeward, and our oil was mostly boiled out 

 and cooling to stow away below. 



The fortunate captain of the Cremona thinks 

 that, in this instance, and others like it, the 

 whale, having been harpooned and deprived of 

 life, sunk, we know not why, and remained 

 below the surface until its specific gravity had 

 diminished, by the generation of gases within 

 the animal tissues, to such a degree that it rose 

 from indefinite depths below. 



Multitudes of the right whale sink immedi- 

 ately after capture, as we have already learned, 

 and are a dead loss ; but this is seldom the 

 case with the sperm ; and the Cremona's lucky 

 prize in this instance may have been a sperm 

 whale that had to be abandoned by some other 

 ship, after being mortally wounded and dying 

 on the surface without ever sinking. 



In what is called shore whaling, where there 

 are soundings, they fasten buoys, like as to an 



